


Book XVIII - The Moon

by niawen



Series: Heartblind: Apprentice Erin Canon Run [6]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Adventure & Romance, F/M, Mutual Pining, Novelization, Other, Shippy Gen, Whump, source-appropriate violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:47:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27901744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niawen/pseuds/niawen
Summary: Muriel relives the worst of himself, Erin gets a good view whether she wanted it or not.
Relationships: Apprentice/Muriel (The Arcana)
Series: Heartblind: Apprentice Erin Canon Run [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2043058
Kudos: 3





	1. Blood and Sandstone

Turning the corner from the coliseum into the forest was more relieving than surprising and Erin didn’t hesitate after Scout’s surprisingly sure-footed figure as she trudged directly into the tangle of shrubs and tall grass. As the scene fell into shade and rough stone gave way to mossy, dank earth and towering tree trunks, Erin was halted in her tracks by strong arms wrapping around her. She paused, something in her chest twisting. Focusing on the task at hand had kept her from losing it, from breaking down at the thought of what Muriel must be going through, how awful it must have been to wake reliving his worst nightmare…

She turned and threw her arms around his neck in a fierce hug, pulling him into her and burying her face carelessly against his sweat-and-blood slicked chest. His arms tightened even further, pulling them together with crushing strength. His face pressed into the crook of her neck and she could feel his eyes squeeze shut and his mouth warp into a trembling grimace, his breath hot. There was nothing she could say so she didn’t, settling for holding him as tightly as she could.

For a long moment neither of them could move. Erin’s arms were starting to fatigue and she was pretty sure the blood streaked copiously all over him had smeared across one of her cheeks. But still… He surprised her by pulling back first, his eyes red and his bottom lip trembling subtly and he looked her up and down slowly. Erin recognized the movement, he did it every single time they did anything remotely dangerous. He was looking for wounds, for damage. She had none, somehow, but his eyes lingered on the grime smeared on her knees, the tear in her shirt just below her collar where Vulgora’s hand had sunk into her... he didn’t miss the blood on her cheek either and from his stricken expression she gathered that he realized where it had come from.

There was conflict in his face, Erin could see it plain as day. He’d never been that good at hiding his feelings. She opened her mouth to say something but he reached out suddenly and then hesitated for an instant, his hand- calloused and still bloodstained- hovering close to her jaw. Erin got the sense he was testing her somehow, trying to see if irreparable damage had been done to their relationship. She watched his face, her brows furrowing as he swallowed thickly, his eyes tracking her every movement. After a tense second, he gently cupped the side of her face and paused again.

Seeing him so scared cut her deeply but she understood that her words would probably be insufficient to help him just then. Instead she closed her eyes and leaned into his palm; she could hear his breathing go ragged in answer but she stayed still. Even knowing her words might sound trite, she couldn’t bear to see him suffer like this. When she opened her eyes to reassure him, her lips parted to speak but she never got the chance as he was suddenly bearing down on her. He crushed their lips together in a deep and almost uncharacteristically aggressive kiss. It was desperate. Hungry.

Erin’s legs felt weak as he loomed over her, one powerful arm wrapped around her back and the other still holding her face, guiding her jaw to deepen the contact even further. “Please,” he gasped against her, barely breaking apart to get the word out. “ _Please…_ ”. 

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to blink back tears as she arched awkwardly backwards but kissed him back with a furious amount of passion. As usual, she felt no concern for herself when she should have- Obviously they were in the magical realms but didn’t that mean her body was… still in Vesuvia? Was it damaged? What was happening to Asra and Julian now? But all she could feel was the gut-punch of Muriel’s suffering and it killed her inside. And sharpening that pain even further was her own guilt, tangled in it like creeping vines.

Seeing him in the coliseum made her appreciate- for maybe the first time- exactly how he saw himself. No wonder being around people hurt him so much, no wonder he bartered for a permanent memory spell that affected everyone he came into contact with,no wonder when he panicked when Masquerade guests recognized him. No wonder he was so afraid of Lucio, even now, when his fear was muted under his determination to finish this. 

Seeing him on the sands, rising to his full height and carelessly wrenching his axe out of that mangled carcass’ cloven skull had stopped her dead in her tracks. Her first thought was that she was facing something… demonic, monstrous. That it was Muriel didn’t even compute for several critical seconds even when she should have been able to recognize him, recognize what was happening. And then he had turned fully to face her, his eyes locked onto hers with absolutely nothing in them but a cold, unfeeling void and she swore her heart had stopped and her blood had frozen over.

He’d lazily tracked her movements (like he wasn’t even remotely threatened by her) as she’d started towards him after a second of hesitation. There was a kind of deadness to his eyes- not the kind magically induced by dominating spells or mind control- the kind that comes from resignation and despair and pain. All he could do was execute the commands given to him… He’d told her this in Tarske but now she could see it happening, first hand. He was absolutely going to put that axe through her if she couldn’t get through to him, if she couldn’t disrupt the survival-based programming he was trapped in. Overcome with terror of what that would do to _him_ whenever he came back to himself, she’d sprinted directly at him, clumsily dodged around a heavy vertical swing that left an inches-deep cleave in the ground and latched on to his blade-arm with as much stubborn strength as she could, screaming at him to remember-

Still locked in his desperate, possessive kiss, she squeezed her eyes tightly shut at the very vivid, very recent memory and felt a few stray tears escape- but the deluge that threatened to break her down remained under control, at least for now.

Muriel pulled back as though burned when he felt the wetness on his hand and he looked like a frightened child for a second: small, shrunken into himself, the eye not covered by a sheet of long, inky hair wide and scared. He worked his mouth, for a second, and he seemed frantic to pick the right words, his breathing rapid and his movements a little jerky.

Erin hastily wiped her face, moving closer and he recoiled like a wounded animal. She bit her lip and held out her hands in a gentle invitation, her throat tight. “You’re okay?” she asked tentatively, scrutinizing his body and trying to locate any damage… she concluded that all the blood and grime on him was from his opponents as he seemed otherwise unscathed.

He worked his mouth for a second before letting out a sharp breath and pulling away another pace. Erin moved to maintain the distance but she didn’t close in on him, wanting to let him have control over his personal space and his actions again. “No,” he grunted, his voice gravelly and choked. “I’m… I’m so sorry. I’m s-sorry…” his voice was small and panicked, quiet against the unnatural silence of the forest.

“You didn’t do anything-” Erin tried to reinforce but then Muriel looked down at her with fury in his miserable face and she stopped abruptly.

“I tried to kill you!”

“You weren’t in your right mind!” Erin shot back quickly, meeting his stare with unmasked insolence, incensed that he couldn’t- or wouldn’t- understand how that made a difference. “You snapped out of it. Everything’s fine-”

He came closer a pace, his temper igniting when the gravity of this still didn’t seem to be sinking in for her. “Everything is _not_ fine!”

She made a strangled noise as she furiously fought the sob stuck in her throat but refused to shrink back from him. “I didn’t mean-” she gesticulated with frustration, not sure how to say what she felt with so much conviction. “I’m _fine_ , Muriel. The Arcana realms aren’t stable like the real world, anyone could get trapped in a powerful memory like that… You came out the other side before anything could happen. I’m fine-”

There was something in his face that made her trail off and the fire of his anger seemed to leave him in a shaky exhale. His expression twisted with pain and she could suddenly tell- everything was coming back to him in those seconds, his brain piecing together faint images and sensory recollection into a full, complete memory.

He remembered coming at her with intent to kill and he remembered trying to violently shake her off his arm. Her blunt fingernails had dug scratches into part of his flesh, up near his elbow… They were still there now, dark red lines that had already scabbed into tiny little scrapes. He reached out suddenly and grabbed her wrist, jerking her in a little roughly to examine her blood-smeared hand and she halfheartedly tried to tug away, looking miserable. A lot of the crimson stains were blotted and stale looking- she’d probably gotten them from touching him, but her fingernails were ripped to the quick and he distinctly recalled her hanging to his arm, scrabbling to cling to his heavy gauntlet for dear life in a bid to delay his finishing blow long enough to do something, _anything_ to jog his memory before something horrific happened.

He dropped her hand and pulled back with a growl, turning away. To his swiftly mounting frustration, she darted around in front of him, glaring up at him defiantly and blocking him with her arms stretched wide. 

“Someone _horrible_ put you through literal hell for what I’m assuming is a huge chunk of your life,” she said, her eyes flashing and she absolutely refused to let him leave without hearing this. “Lucio exploited every bit of humanity in you because he’s a cruel, heartless monster who was _bored!_ ” Her voice was peaking shrilly but she wasn’t finished. “You have punished yourself enough for this a thousand times over, Muriel! We’re working on stopping Lucio for it and you… you can’t leave now. We’re so close. We’re alive, we can keep going…” And just like that the fire in her was dying and Erin’s eyes swam with unshed tears that she was desperately trying to beat back. Muriel looked more upset than angry now, too, his eyes watery and his lips tightly pursed. “Please,” she begged him, trying to force and hold eye contact. “You’ve punished yourself enough. You don’t deserve to be deprived of everything because Lucio is a monster.”

Muriel looked away, fists clenched. “It doesn’t matter how it happened. I did those things… I’m just as much of a monster.”

“That night I remembered you again and Inanna led me to you… Would a monster protect me from the rampaging ghost of his worst enemy at massive risk to himself? Would a monster take care of me after I expended my magic and passed out? Let me sleep in his bed all night and make me breakfast in the morning? Would a remorseless murderer let some damn fool magician drag him to the palace, far away from the only place he felt safe and then wind up sleeping in a hallway to protect her chamber door? What about letting the same damn fool magician drag him across the continent at the risk of his life all to find the monster that put him through hell to begin with!? Should I keep going? I can think of plenty of examples.” She watched him closely for a second in challenge before she relented, softening. “You’re not your own worst nightmare. And you’re definitely not mine. Please. _Please_ listen to me.”

The only sound for well over a minute was their jagged breaths and the occasional quiet sniffle. Erin found the silence oppressive and even though it made her want to scream, she stood and waited.

“You looked… so scared in the coliseum,” he choked out after what felt like an age. “I can’t… I don’t want to be the reason you hurt… or are afraid. Ever.”

Erin came in closer, prompted to be more tactile when Muriel was hurting even as he made nervous attempts to distance himself and she did her best to restrain her instincts. “I was afraid _for_ you. Muriel, that’s exactly why I ran _at_ you and not away. I wanted to help. I still do. You’ve proven to me time and time again that you aren’t what I saw in there. That you’re a good person.”

He seemed torn and she really just wanted to touch him... after the fear that Vulgora would get that killing blow on him, after the fear of seeing him at the height of his stint as an executioner, covered in blood and eyes devoid of recognition or mercy… Selfishly, she supposed, she just wanted to take away all his suffering. No one deserved to be safe and at peace more than him and it was cruel that blood and death seemed to dog his footsteps like spectre...

He moved suddenly and it startled her a little, snapping her back into reality a little abruptly. He was yanking at the thick leather straps that kept the gauntlet secured to his arm, clumsily digging his fingers underneath it and pulling so hard she could see his opposite shoulder straining.

Unable to contain herself any longer she closed the distance and put a hand on his tentatively, desperate to help. “What… is it?”

He looked away and she was almost elated to see a slight rise of color to his cheeks and he avoided her eyes, uncomfortable with her closeness despite everything. But it distracted from what his face had looked like when he was bearing down on her, axe raised. “I can’t… wear this any more. I hate it... it’s…” he struggled, looking anywhere but at her.

Without waiting to ask or be prompted to help, she rotated his forearm almost casually and began feeding the thick leather through the scuffed metal buckles. The gauntlet was well worn… he must have used it for years of near-constant fights. She didn’t linger, however, and unfastened it as quick as she could. He shook it off the rest of the way and it fell onto the mossy ground where he turned away from it in favor of dealing with the rest of his armor. He busied himself with the heavy leather waistguard, dropping that aside with a weighty noise, and tore the crimson sash beneath it off of his hips with a loud ripping sound.

Erin undid the buckle securing the heavy pauldron to his shoulder and he pulled it the rest of the way off with an air of utter repugnance. She realized he was once again shackled- thick, studded iron wrapped around his neck and wrists… She remembered that night under the aurora so clearly, the pale scar tissue that encircled his throat and wrists had been exposed for the first time in she didn’t know how long. He made to move away- as though resigned to the chains once again- but she seized his forearm and shook her head, staring up at him pleadingly.

She paused until he relaxed minutely, until he made no move to pull away again (she felt powerfully that he had to allow this for it to work). Satisfied, she turned to first one iron fetter and then the other, curling her fingers around the broad, heavy band and pulling it away from his flesh. It took about as much strength as pulling a paper chain apart, the metal twisting and finally splitting like wet clay under her touch. With a tentative pause, she looked into his face and reached slowly for his throat, where the huge, heavy collar and it’s leather fixture sat. He nodded jerkily and without any more hesitation, she repeated the movement, sliding her fingers beneath the cold metal and slowly pulling it away.

He rubbed absently at his wrists for a second, radiating self-conscious discomfort before he reached for his neck and was almost surprised to find overgrown hair, spilling over his powerful shoulders and most of the way down his back. Erin felt another strong pang of sympathy for his discomfort but she couldn’t deny that the self-conscious line of his lips was comfortingly normal-looking and she found herself smiling fondly. “I’m… not very good at braiding but I could try to at least get it out of your face…?” she offered tentatively.

He frowned and shook his head after a second, struggling with the words. “No. It’s got to go. I never wanted to look like this again.” He cast about for a solution and she watched his eyes fall on the huge blacksteel axe that had materialized with the rest of his gladiator equipment. Something in her wanted to stop him and offer to do it herself- Morga’s knife still rested at her hip in easy reach and the memory of slicing off her own long hair with a straight razor almost three years ago came back to her in a rush. But he was already picking up the heavy weapon, gripping the haft near the head and angling it close to his face. He wasn’t careful about it and despite the persistent urge to help him still clamoring for attention, Erin watched wordlessly. He grabbed careless chunks of hair and sheared it without blinking, working his way around his skull until long swatches of jet black hair littered the ground at his feet. He stepped away from it, perturbed, and Erin reached to brush some lingering strands off of his shoulder.

For a moment, there was more awkward silence. Erin could see that Muriel looked like he wanted to say something but the color to his cheeks was a good indicator he was having trouble with the words. Not that she didn’t recognize him the second she saw his face in the coliseum but he looked much more recognizable now- bare-chested, slightly embarrassed looking, and with wild dark hair obscuring part of his face as he looked awkwardly at the ground. She smiled to herself slightly and finally felt the knot in her throat loosen a little.

“Are you… okay?” he asked suddenly, breaking the heavy silence after a long moment and jarring Erin out of her thoughts.

“Yeah… This place… It's not from my nightmares. This was more meant to be your trial then mine, I think.” She cast a glance around at the magic replication of the forest Muriel lived in. It was much less unsettling than the empty Vesuvia and its bloody arena but something still felt unnatural and possibly dangerous. 

To her surprise, Muriel pulled a face. It was pained and upset and after a second he took a step closer to her but stopped himself before he could close the distance. “That’s not… what I meant…” he struggled.

Somewhat alarmed by his choked response she moved over to him, paused at a respectable distance, but then came in all the way when he didn’t immediately try to get her out of his space. Boldly and without hesitation, she laid her hand on his bloodied chest firmly, pressing up against his elevated pulse and watching him with concern. “Tell me.” she said, though the confident note to her voice was more born of desperation to salvage how far Muriel had come in so short a time, only to seemingly have all his past horrors forced back on him in a cruel twist of irony.

He swallowed thickly, surprised by the contact. For an instant Erin thought he was going to tell her to stop or pull away but he hesitated… and then he didn’t. In another instant he seized her shoulders and pulled her in a little clumsily, hunching over her much shorter body to wrap both his arms around her back in a smothering, desperate embrace. He angled his face to press up against the curve of her neck, just above where it sloped into her shoulder and the smell of her flooded his senses.

She didn’t question it, though her arms were pinned under his so she had to settle for holding his middle awkwardly. He didn’t seem to notice.

After another shaky exhale, he was able to speak. “I meant… Vulgora. The hole in your chest…”

“I’m… fine,” she managed, knowing that maybe the words sounded insultingly casual. But she was in one piece and Vulgora was gone.

His arms tightened around her and she made a quiet noise as he exhaled a little sharply against her throat and his stubble scratched along sensitive skin lightly. “You jumped in front of me…”

Erin was gearing up for another argument, albeit reluctantly. “I couldn’t… You know that I can’t just stand by and let someone be hurt. Let _you_ get hurt. I told you… before. No one else gets lost to this mess..”

“You’re not no one,” he managed thickly and then they were both quiet for a long second. The hug wasn’t particularly comfortable- Muriel was incredibly tall and the hunch to his body forced Erin to lean backwards slightly, his arms like iron bands around her- but still, she cared so much about him and was so glad for his contact again that these were trivial inconveniences at best.

“Muriel-”

“You can’t…” he mumbled, quiet with emotion and not self-consciousness for once. “You can’t do that to me again. We’re… a team, Erin. I-I thought you were _dead_. I thought… that I couldn’t protect you...” He pulled back, gripping her shoulders and straightening out so he could search her face for her answer. He frowned slightly at the very subtle look of discontent he found in her eyes. He’d been travelling with her long enough to see it and it gave him a sudden unsettled feeling. “Promise me,” he insisted, the urgency and ferocity to his voice unmasked and his eyes practically blazing with intensity as he stared down at her. “Promise you won’t sacrifice yourself for me, Erin. Never again. You’re too important.”

Erin could think of many arguments to make then. She should think of many more situations where she would gladly throw her life away if it meant protecting the people she loved, if it meant neutralizing Lucio, if it meant that the plague could be diverted or ended entirely… but Muriel’s gaze was nothing but green fire and she thought better of it.

“Erin.” he prompted again, brow contracting slightly.

She swallowed and nodded finally. “I promise.” Then, after another moment, she added, “What about you? I.. can’t stand the thought of you in danger, even if I’ve done nothing but subject you to that this whole time. But the thought of losing you now…”

At once Muriel managed to look taken off guard, sheepish, and acquiescing. He considered her words for a second before he finally nodded. “Promise,” he agreed, nodding slightly and staring at her. She averted her eyes but didn’t turn away and Muriel was gripped with that alien desire for closeness and contact that was beginning to become a _thing_ these days. He moved nearer, mimicking the way she breached his boundaries slowly and gave him plenty of opportunities to rectify it. She did nothing of the sort, though, watching him come closer blankly for a second before she smiled with an uncharacteristic hint of shyness in her red cheeks and slightly watery, mismatched eyes.

He leaned in slowly to kiss her, out of nerves, but she tilted her head to meet his lips as soon as his intent was apparent. He cupped her face with both hands, the edge of his palm slotting gently under the ridge of her jawbone. Erin had really wanted to do nothing more than kiss him breathless since they left Mazelinka’s house this morning, anxious at each step of their mission, each chance for anticipated dangers to balloon out of control or for unexpected disasters to catch them fatally off guard. She kissed him back fiercely, throwing her arms around his neck and pulling him in tightly.

They were like that for a long time… she didn’t know how long (time was weird here) but their anxiety and relief and everything else desperately needed an outlet. Now that they had started, it was increasingly difficult to stop…

There was a soft noise a bit to the side, a soft woof and Erin stupidly thought of Inanna, breaking away from Muriel with a breathless little gasp that made her flush even darker. To her sudden recollection and intensifying embarrassment, it was Scout, watching them placidly from a short distance. Her tail wagged slowly and she gestured deeper into the woods, waiting for them to collect themselves and follow.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Erin muttered crassly, reddening further still and finally pulling out of Muriel’s arms with some reluctance. “How long have we been here?”

Muriel let her go and while he didn’t look particularly embarrassed by their delay, his face was flushed and his breathing was just a touch shallow. “No idea,” he said, looking to Scout. “We should probably follow, though…”

Erin nodded and, after a second, managed to make eye contact with him. She gave him a shy, lopsided smile and nodded, reaching out for his hand before moving to follow Scout’s form into the underbrush with a sheepish apology. He went easily, though his hand tightened around hers as he stepped over the remnants of his gladiator armor.


	2. Whumptober Alternate Take

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I ended up writing a slightly different version of this chapter based on a Whumptober prompt "hiding a wound" and really thought this would be a fun way to tackle this part of the story.

Erin knew instinctively that something bad was about to greet her, as the twisting, nonsensical streets of Vesuvia led her abruptly to the coliseum. The structure itself seemed to be radiating the energy and amplifying the roar of the crowd. She felt her guts sink and Scout shift behind her, demeanor unflappable as always. But Erin also knew that the magical realms rarely led you somewhere you weren’t supposed to go or to something you weren’t supposed to see, so she took a deep breath and passed through the heavy iron gate.

The roar of the crowd was absolutely deafening, the screaming of some wild entity with a thousand heads. Even over the deafening thunder that radiated from all directions at every level of the elevated stands, Erin clearly heard the _whoosh_ and final meaty _thump_ of a heavy weapon cleaving deep into a body. As she stepped into the light, the scene before her sharpened with almost painful clarity.

Blood everywhere, a double bearded axe taller than she was lodged into the shifting, shadowy body of a shade, practically identical to the figures shrieking with delight in the stands. She watched, transfixed, as the corpse shakily got to its feet, nearly in two pieces, cut right through the ribcage, and shambled to take a seat among the crowd. Now that she looked more closely, the spectators were all in similar states, bloody and dismembered, some missing heads, some missing parts of heads, but all of them were cheering. One word in unison, over and over again. _Scourge._

For the first time, Erin’s eyes darted back to the other figure as it straightened out, absently bent to wipe a smear of blood off his leg. His full height was imposing and intimidating, easily dwarfing her and he turned fluidly, hefting the massive axe to brace on his huge, muscular shoulder. For a second, Erin’s brain didn’t seem to be able to compute what she was looking at but then he started moving closer and there was no mistaking him. Muriel.

His hair was nearly down to his waist, overgrown and hanging in his face but what she could make out was absolutely, undeniably him. His eyes were the same green they’d always been but there was a deadness, a blankness to them as he approached and glared down his nose at her. His grip adjusted on the haft of his weapon and the crowd roared with anticipation, still chanting for the Scourge. She couldn’t move, trying to take him all in- everything he was wearing- from the blood-red cloth cinched haphazardly under his waistguard to the heavy iron chain attached to the heavy spiked collar trapping his throat was designed to intimidate.

Without thinking, she lurched for him anyway, relieved to see him after the confusion of their separation. “Muriel, you’re okay! We have to…” but she trailed off, unsure as he continued to walk steadily towards her, his gait unhurried and deliberate, his face cold and his eyes dead.

He pulled the axe down from his shoulder and let the enormous head fall to the dirt with a thud and a cloud of dust. “You’re my next opponent?” he asked, resigned. There was nothing in his voice, no recognition, not even humor at how unintimidating she looked next to him, how absolutely unthreatened he was by her.

Something had a tight, icy hold of her heart and Erin felt panic rise in her like a flash flood. “No, of course I’m not-” but the crowd suddenly surged and the noise was absolutely deafening as he hefted the weapon and started to move aggressively towards her. The axe came down and she barely dodged in time, lunging for him and grabbing his tense arm. “Muriel, it’s me! It’s just me, okay?”

“That’s not my _name_!” he snarled suddenly, seizing her violently by the bicep and throwing her away with ease.

She stumbled and fell heavily in the dirt with a grunt, feeling a bit dazed by the impact but scrabbling to her feet just the same as the absolutely terrifying figure he cut was bearing down on her very quickly. “It is!” she said desperately, scrabbling to her feet in the dust and lunging clumsily to the side as the heavy axe came around again. “Remember, Muriel, this isn’t you-”

But he was getting increasingly furious with her scrambling just out of range and her incessant talking. The axe swings were at the point now where a single blow would likely kill her. Erin gasped, partly from exertion but mostly from oncoming panic that she was desperately trying to fight down. She launched in again and threw herself on his axe arm, curling her fingers as tightly as she could into the leather straps there for leverage. “This isn’t you, Muriel, you told me it wasn’t!” 

The crowd surged deafeningly and his temper grew proportionally. 

“This is _exactly_ what I am,” he growled, livid, and he seized her by the collar of her tunic with his free hand. She panicked and flailed and but- of course- he was too strong and he simply ripped her off his arm and she flailed wildly, her feet sliding against the gravel. Erin felt something pop painfully in her neck with the sudden motion and gasped raggedly but was still trying to reaffirm her grip on him desperately. Seeing him like this was so jarring she was having a hard time processing enough information to treat this as real combat. But it was. And she was going to wind up dead if she didn’t do something drastic. But before that idea could solidify any further she was moving, plummeting actually, as he _hurled_ her towards the bloody ground as the crowd went _wild_.

Erin’s whole body crumpled on the impact and she felt the crunch and snap of bones breaking before an excruciating pain lanced through her whole body, radiating from her left side, and it forced a strangled scream out of her mouth. The audience- packing the stands that seemed to stretch up to some infinite height- was bellowing again like some single entity with a thousand voices. _Scourge! Scourge! Scourge!_

Erin couldn’t move. One or more of her ribs were broken and the jagged edges had shifted outwards, leaving a deep wound in her side that was already pouring blood. In an instant of trained reaction, she put both her hands on it, forcing a healing spell to knit the flesh there and slow the bleeding. Healing yourself, however, is difficult. You’re ultimately funneling magic out of and back into the same pool. But even the small bit she could manage helped keep the wound from being decidedly fatal. Unfortunately the pain was absolutely debilitating and she could only lay there for a moment as Muriel moved purposefully towards her.

When he made to deliver the killing blow, Erin was ready with a barrier spell, but it only flickered into existence long enough to divert the heavy blade. It impacted hard enough against the brief smear of light to rattle her teeth but the axe head only slid awkwardly to the side to embed itself partially into the blood soaked sand.

“Remember!” Erin shouted stubbornly at him as she managed to climb shakily to her feet. Getting into close range with him had been a terribly foolish idea, she realized, but now it was too late for her to maintain a safer distance. “We’ve been... “ she lunged clumsily forward and grabbed the huge fist clenched around the haft of his axe. His eyes were wild with anger, he looked like a baited, feral animal like this, cornered and in enough pain to finally lash out… Lucio had clearly done everything in his considerable power to strip Muriel’s humanity away as violently as possible and it made her seethe furiously. One way or another, she was going to skin that goat bastard. 

Erin wondered faintly, as Muriel snarled furiously, if his ballooning rage was better or worse than the icy deadness from a few moments ago. “We’ve been through so much!” She grit her teeth and tried to choke back a ragged sob as he flung her around again, snarling ferally at her stubborn grip even as her side sent waves of nauseating, visceral pain through her nervous system. “You’re not a monster, not even like this! Muriel, you have to stop-” She was barely hanging on as he tried violently to throw her off his arm. She swore coarsely with the effort of hanging on and when he held up his arm she was still resolutely stuck there, standing off balance on her toes- his other hand curled into a huge, tight fist and he reeled back with a deliberate slowness… Erin was lucky that the first set of broken ribs hadn’t punctured a lung, there was no telling what damage this would do to her...

Desperate and out of time, she reached for his throat and he jerked, not expecting this weak, soft thing to suddenly go for a vital point and he had let his guard down just fractionally in his irritation. Her bloody fingers only tangled in the links of the chain, just up to the collar and she gave it a frustrated jerk. “You got rid of this already,” she gritted out stupidly, stuck on the injustice and not at all fully in her right mind herself, and he froze, dumbstruck by the unexpected movement and what it stirred at the very back of his brain. “Why don’t you remember? That night… under the aurora. You finally let go… don’t go back to this, don’t let Lucio do this to you...”

She hung her head, gasping in pain and exhaustion, going mostly limp with her toes barely scraping the ground and her arm stretched to reach his collar. Though she expected it to, the violent retaliation never came and the crowd was beginning to shout restlessly at the pause. Hardly daring to, she looked up into his face and was almost elated to see that he looked confused and conflicted.

“The aurora…” he muttered confused, his voice gravelly and low, but then his brows contracted and he shook his head as though to physically clear it, the stands roaring for more blood.

Erin yanked on him again to try and force his attention to her face, her words, despite the crushing exhaustion and pain. “You… you showed me you trusted me and you freed yourself from all of these fucking chains. You told me you wanted to help me face Lucio, you told me you wanted to get stronger with me. I know you remember, don’t lose yourself!”

The crowd roared and Muriel’s other hand went to his temple as he winced in pain. “No! I’m… I’m a killer… I’m-!”

“You are not a _goddamn_ monster, Muriel!” she flung back, her voice rising angrily. “And I’ll tell you that as many times as you need!” she shouted, only a few inches from his face, shaking his collar furiously, if weakly. “Muriel, look at me,” she pleaded and to her immense relief, he did before he could think better of it, even as the thousands of onlookers screamed their disapproval. “Get rid of this fucking thing, you don’t have to be this any more, no one can make you do this ever again.”

He staggered back clumsily and Erin slid down his body and almost lost her footing, but she still held resolutely onto his arm, following him as he backed up a pace. “No one can…? But… this is me, isn’t it? Why am I…?” He looked at his open hand for a second, smeared with blood, then back to Erin, clinging to the other arm and looking haggard and exhausted. “That… that night under the aurora… Erin…”

She groaned in relief, her eyes watering before she could stop herself. With a strangled noise she threw herself on him, launching clumsily to wrap her arms around his muscular neck and through his thick hair. When two strong arms clamped around her in the next second she sobbed in earnest, partly out of the crushing relief of getting him back and partially out of the horrific agony of her crushed ribs.

His breathing was harsh and jagged and his arms were like iron bands and he hunched deeply to facilitate the height difference. Erin was beyond relieved to have him return to himself but the pressure against her side was breathtakingly painful and she forced herself back with a gentle hand on his shoulder. “We need to leave,” she told him seriously, staring up into his face even as the shadows in the stands began to roil and thrash with fury. From somewhere a low rumbling vibrated through the arena. She grabbed his hand and pulled him after her, his first step was just slightly hesitant but then he took another, and another, until he was jogging after her. The forms in the stands were shrieking in fury but nothing came near enough to stop them and they were outside the coliseum gates in a few more hurried steps.

Vesuvia, the coliseum, and the Red Market melted into shadows around them, replaced after a moment by the gnarled and ancient trees of the forest. They both seemed to let out the breath they were holding and then, a second later, strong arms wrapped around her from behind and she sagged a little, even as the pressure from his grip sent lancing pains straight to her brainstem.

***

When he was ready to move on, his gladiator armor left in a forgotten pile on the forest floor, she led the way after Scout, picking her way over the uneven ground somewhat delicately. The pain radiating from her side was growing nauseating and sweat beaded on her brow as she tried her hardest to push it down and ignore it. She had kept Muriel from noticing so far, her cloak wrapped tightly around her torso… though luckily she was covered in so much blood and grime it would take more than an instant’s glance to realise the deep stain on her side was fresh.

She knew she needed to rest, that she was so taxed there was a slight danger of her passing out if she wasn’t careful. But there was no time and they had to keep moving. In a little while she would have recovered enough energy to try giving it another round of healing but until then, she was out of luck.

Distracted by her thoughts and the lancing pain rioting across her abdomen, she took a bad step and nearly tripped over a root, stumbling and doing her best to choke down a pained whimper, gritting her teeth in agony. 

“H-hey,” Murel said in alarm, leaning over her quickly. “What is it, what’s wrong?” He hovered a little invasively, not understanding why she still looked so pale and sweaty. Or why her movements were so stilted and stiff.

“I’m fine,” she insisted unconvincingly, but there was nothing else she could really add however so she gave him a wan smile and did her best to unscrunch her face. She made to press forward but he grabbed her wrist and stopped her. Muriel’s grip was urgent, but not unkind… though it sparked panic rather than comfort as she realized there would be no way to hide it if he took a closer look. “Really,” she managed. “I’m fine. Just a little tired. We need to keep-” she tugged again and this time he let go but the movement wrenched a gasp out of her before she could stop herself.

Muriel was immediately hovering worriedly, his eyes tracking up and down her body intensely. “Erin, what’s wrong? You’re in pain-”

Fighting a rising panic, she tried a little more ardently to put distance between them but he was resolute. Brow furrowing, he reached out and pulled her cloak away from her body a little, but it was wide enough to reveal the dark, fresh stain on her shirt, large crimson blots that could only be new blood. The color drained from Muriel’s face even as she quickly tried to cover it up again and reddened with humiliated anger.

“I’m _fine_ ,” she insisted firmly, but Muriel was staring with clear and unmasked panic in his eyes and he refused to let go of the thick fabric.

“You’re not fine!” he snapped back, incensed and hurt she would lie to him but then something clicked and his grip loosened at the realization. “I did that… didn’t I...”

Erin held up a hand to try and placate him. “Muriel, it was an accident, it’s fine-”

He pulled his hands away as though he’d been burned, looking as hurt and as scared as that night when Morga had demanded he pick up a blade and turn it on Erin. “You… how b-bad is it? Erin, don’t lie to me. How bad? Why haven’t you healed it yet?” He was in full panic, eyes wide and hands shaking.

Erin stubbornly moved to press onwards, determined not to make this worse by showing it to him. But he grabbed her forearm with surprising roughness and pulled her back. She stumbled and started to lose her balance but a strong arm found its way under her knees to heft her off the ground before her legs had even fully buckled. Her face was flaming of course but the relief of being off her feet, of escaping the excruciating pain of falling with her side torn open… she could only gasp shallowly and let her head loll backwards into the crook of his arm.

He moved and set her down gently beside a thick, fallen log and without asking for permission, he unbuckled the belt at her waist and pulled up the hem of her stained tunic. He gasped, dumbstruck as the smell of blood hit him and Erin made a pained noise but looked away morosely. “Why… can’t you heal it?” he asked quietly, but his voice was pure anxiety, his eyes darting repeatedly from the wound to her face and back again. “What do I…”

Erin grunted and shifted minutely. “Healed it as best as I could… but healing yourself is d-difficult. Hard to get… enough power.”

“Use mine, you did… back at that village… with Morga,” he urged quickly, grabbing both of Erin’s hands in his own. “You can do it again, right?”

She groaned as the movement of her arms forced the muscles in her side to shift minutely, causing another cascade of pain. Honestly, she’d forgotten that Muriel had little trouble sharing his magic. She’d only done it with Asra a few times and the barrier spells Muriel had such a strong influence over weren’t much of a conscious effort on his part. But he had a point and it was better than nothing.

Erin nodded and that seemed to satisfy Muriel, at least a little, but when she took a calming breath and reached out to tap into him, his energy hit her like an electric shock and she flinched sharply, the connection dropping.

Muriel was wide eyed and growing more frantic, squeezing her hands tightly and hovering low over her. “What was that? What’s wrong, why didn't it work-?” his voice never left that low, deep decibel but his open fear made it brittle. 

She tried to take a bracing breath but it only made her ribs creak painfully. “You’re… afraid. Healing magic has to be calmer...”

He made a noise. “How did you think I was gonna react to this?” he snapped, frustrated and very much still frantic. “I can’t-”

“Muriel, shut up,” she groaned, not unkindly, but she needed him to pay attention and she tightened her grip on his hands. “Think about the ocean.”

“What... the hell are you talking about?” he rumbled quietly, clearly concerned that pain and bloodloss had made her delirious.

Her face flushed darkly and she averted her eyes. “It's what I do when I panic, okay? Think about waves on the beach, the sound, the steadiness… “

He stared at her blankly, worry still there but slowly overcome with confusion. 

“Time your breathing, get it slow and steady,” she panted once he’d finally nodded slowly. “Then try again.”

She gave him a couple seconds to gather himself while she tensed and tried not to shift her busted body but the pain really was taking up a vast amount of her brainpower and she desperately hoped this would heal her. When Muriel’s chest was rising and falling at a slow, even pace, she gripped his hands a little tighter and interlaced their fingers. She looked at him for approval to open the connection and he swallowed thickly before nodding once.

It flooded her quickly again and while, at first, it had that powerful sharpness of anxiety it eased into a much steadier flow a few seconds later. She breathed a loud sigh of relief as the spell she was trying to form suddenly seemed to take shape so much easier. Muriel’s magic was- just like the rest of him- solid and stable and verdant. It was compliant too, quick to respond to her urgings. After a few long, silent moments, she went lax and let go of him.

Muriel placed one large hand gently on her ribcage to feel for unnatural give and was satisfied that he felt none and she didn’t jolt in sudden pain. “Is it…?”

“Not totally,” she finally said after a minute, pressing delicately just to be sure. “But it's much closer to a normal healing spell. Still sore as hell,” she grumbled, sitting up under her own power gingerly, “but it isn’t anything like a few minutes ago. I can walk just fine, I think. Should maybe… see a healer when I can but for now I think I’ll be fine.”

He sat up and ran a hand over his grimy, stubbled face and looked very tired for a second. Then it shifted to guilt and Erin tried to circumvent it before it could fully manifest. She put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a slight shake. “I got hurt because I rushed in again,” she said seriously, her eyes locked onto his. “The things that you can see here, the illusions that you can get stuck in… to the person trapped in them they’re as real as anything. If our positions had been swapped I would have fireballed you in a heartbeat because I wouldn’t have been in my right mind. Okay? What happened back there has less to do with you and your past and more to do with me charging into a situation I knew was dangerous because I was worried about you.” She gave him a somewhat stern look that he met helplessly, unsure how to argue that but instinctively wanting to. “You can’t take the blame for this. There were other ways I could have approached it. Besides, we both know I have a track record for rashness.”

She stood up fully, the movement slow and a little stiff as she tried to test the limits of what her sore body would allow. Muriel was so tall that even seated his face was only a few inches short of her chest and tried to mouthed stupidly, also climbing to his feet. “You can’t just… I mean, I should have-”

Erin turned suddenly and reached up, gentle fingers closing on Muriel’s chin. He trailed off, face igniting (Erin’s did too but her expression was set and unwavering) as she guided him lower towards her. “Don’t,” she ordered softly. “This one’s my responsibility and we have other things to deal with right now.” She pulled him in again, close enough to kiss but paused for a second. He faltered, still looking wildly flustered and unsure of himself, but his eyes were utterly trapped on her face, especially her lips, pursed just a little with her rare, stern tone of voice.

She pressed her lips to his then and he was floored by the show of blatant want and desire- even if it was pretty chaste- since they both tended to get incredibly embarrassed over comparably little. This was more confidence than he thought he’d ever seen from her but when her lips parted to deepen the contact, his brain shorted out and he kissed back enthusiastically after another second.

It was a few long stiflingly hot moments before she broke away, burning with flush herself but giving him an affectionate once over. “Ready to move on?” she asked, trying to hide her breathlessness.

Muriel averted his eyes and nodded faintly, following her lead as she smiled with satisfaction and moved to continue through the overgrowth of plants and vegetation in the vague direction Scout had been leading them.


End file.
